And now Trafford fell into a great perplexity of mind. His banker had
called his attention to the fact that his account was overdrawn to the
extent of three hundred and thirteen pounds, and he had been under that
vague sort of impression one always has about one's current account that
he was a hundred and fifty or so to the good. His first impression was
that those hitherto infallible beings, those unseen gnomes of the
pass-book whose lucid figures, neat tickings, and unrelenting additions
constituted banks to his imagination, must have made a mistake; his
second that some one had tampered with a cheque. His third thought
pointed to Marjorie and the easy circumstances of his home. For a
fortnight now she had been obviously ailing, oddly irritable; he did not
understand the change in her, but it sufficed to prevent his taking the
thing to her at once and going into it with her as he would have done
earlier. Instead he had sent for his pass-book, and in the presence of
its neat columns realized for the first time the meaning of Marjorie's
"three hundred pounds." Including half-a-dozen cheques to Oxbridge
tradesmen for her old debts, she had spent, he discovered, nearly seven
hundred and fifty.
He sat before the little bundle of crumpled strips of pink and white,
perforated, purple stamped and effaced, in a state of extreme
astonishment. It was no small factor in his amazement to note how very
carelessly some of those cheques of Marjorie's had been written. Several
she had not even crossed. The effect of it all was that she'd just spent
his money--freely--with an utter disregard of the consequences.
Up to that moment it had never occurred to Trafford that anybody one
really cared for, could be anything but punctilious about money. Now
here, with an arithmetical exactitude of demonstration, he perceived
that Marjorie wasn't.
It was so tremendous a discovery for him, so disconcerting and
startling, that he didn't for two days say a word to her about it. He
couldn't think of a word to say. He felt that even to put these facts
before her amounted to an accusation of disloyalty and selfishness that
he hadn't the courage to make. His work stopped altogether. He struggled
hourly with that accusation. Did she realize----? There seemed no escape
from his dilemma; either she didn't care or she didn't understand!
His thoughts went back to the lake of Orta, when he had put all his
money at her disposal. She had been surprised, and now he perceived she
had also been a little frightened. The chief excuse he could find for
her was that she was inexperienced--absolutely inexperienced.
Even now, of course, she was drawing fresh cheques....
He would have to pull himself together, and go into the whole thing--for
all its infinite disagreeableness--with her....
But it was Marjorie who broached the subject.
He had found work at the laboratory unsatisfactory, and after lunching
at his club he had come home and gone to his study in order to think out
the discussion he contemplated with her. She came in to him as he sat
at his desk. "Busy?" she said. "Not very," he answered, and she came up
to him, kissed his head, and stood beside him with her hand on his
shoulder.
"Pass-book?" she asked.
He nodded.
"I've been overrunning."
"No end."
The matter was opened. What would she say?